Word: luang
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...State Department last week expressed "some serious concern" over this buildup, but the government of Prince Souvanna Phouma has much more reason for concern. It reported that North Vietnamese forces had launched a "general offensive" against several government villages: Ban Nam Bac, north of the royal capital of Luang-prabang, and Lao Ngam and Phalane...
...talk politics violates one of the 227 Theravadan rules of conduct. The constitution stipulates that the King must be a "fervent Buddhist," but fervor in happy-go-lucky Laos covers a multitude of careless religious enthusiasms. Perennial civil war has left Buddhist practice virtually uninvolved, though near the Luang temple, skilled, cigarette-puffing monks cheerfully cast their Buddhas in brass melted down from 37-mm. and 105-mm. artillery cartridges...
...Died. Luang Pibul Songgram, 66, Thai strongman, who as Prime Minister from 1938 to 1941 and again from 1948 to 1957 changed the country's name from Siam to Thailand, turned it westward, or so he thought, with such Occidental laws as ordering men to kiss their wives before leaving for work each morning, ruled with a generally competent, militantly anti-Communist hand until a 1957 economic crisis led the Thai army to overthrow him; of a heart attack; in Tokyo...
Upriver, in the royal capital of Luang-prabang, Buddhist monks in orange robes gathered in the gold-spired temples to pray for the soul of King Sisavang Vong. who died 18 months ago. Since then, his corpse-preserved in formaldehyde and spices-has been sitting in a huge gilded coffin carved from a single, perfect sandalwood tree, awaiting a propitious time for cremation. Last week the time came. Military planes, which might usefully have airdropped munitions to isolated garrisons, were commandeered to fly in tons of food for expected funeral guests. The King's coffin was placed...
With the northeast securely in Communist hands, two Pathet Lao columns moved on the royal capital of Luang-prabang. routed government forces at Phou Khoun and drove to within 15 miles of the city. In central Laos the town of Kamkeut, which lies astride the strategic road running to Viet Nam, fell to the advancing Reds. Vientiane itself was closely ringed by six Pathet Lao companies which ambushed convoys and sent patrols ranging as far as a U.S. compound barely three miles from the center of the city...